Dr Ann Daly

Equity, Sustainability and Truth Telling in History

I had studied at 4 universities (USyd, Wollongong, UNSW and UTS) before coming to UNE to do my PhD as an external student. Despite being an external student, it was my most socially and intellectually collaborative experience at a university due to the weeks on campus at end of semesters.

After completing a BA at night and having two children, I completed a Dip Ed and started teaching in primary schools in my mid-thirties. After ten years I applied for a position in state office and developed the Basic Skills Test (BST) literacy assessments for eleven years. I was concerned by the gap between the mean scores of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal students, so while working on the BST, I conducted research for my MA investigating the performance on questions and criteria that were indicative of differences between standard Australian English and the Aboriginal English dialect. When presenting the results of that research, Aboriginal educators had asked if there was any correlation between reading and the use of Aboriginal English. I was therefore keen to participate in and bring an Aboriginal perspective to an Australian Research Council (ARC) linkage project with the NSW Department of Education, investigating students’ multimodal reading.

I obtained the PhD scholarship position on this project and enrolled at UNE to follow my supervisor, Prof Len Unsworth. He and research fellow, Dr Eveline Chan, my co-supervisor, were very supportive and even allowed me to add an extra stream of investigation to the thesis to follow up observations of differences in complexity of students’ spoken language which were found to correlate with reading comprehension. For the duration of the ARC project, Eveline and I were based within the state office of the Department of Education in Sydney. I was very grateful for the expertise of Eveline, who now works full-time in teacher education at UNE. This was probably my most challenging time working 5 days a week as required on the PhD and 2 days a week for the Department of Education.

After gaining my PhD, I developed assessments for other projects, such as the National Partnerships in Literacy and Numeracy, and later developed these further in online assessments across stages 2 to 5 of the English and mathematics syllabuses (Year 3 to Year 10). Work on my PhD gave me the skills to organise and participate in a research program called the Rural Outcomes of Schooling involving case studies in 14 schools which were performing above expectations for their level of ICSEA (Index of Community Social Educational Advantage). Eventually I applied for a job working on research into other departmental programs such as Early Action for Success and the Riverina Access Program. I enjoyed this work identifying and sharing the strategies that made these programs successful.

Recently, as part of the Literacy and Numeracy Strategy 2017-2020, I have worked with a team on developing the Best Start Year 7, an online assessment with online reports to identify students in need of additional support in reading and numeracy in order to succeed in secondary schooling. From my first interview for this position I argued that a writing assessment was also needed as that is where the greatest gaps are for students in NSW. I have greatly appreciated the opportunity and encouragement to develop and trial the Best Start Year 7 writing assessment, and its marking rubric, which was piloted with 50 schools this year. I think this project will be my greatest achievement as our team has developed six online professional learning courses to support teachers to continue to assess and teach informative writing.

In this time of COVID-19 our team has risen to the challenge of providing short online assessments in reading and numeracy for students learning from home during Term 2 this year. These assessments provide immediate feedback for students and teachers and are linked to the National Literacy and Numeracy Learning Progressions. In Term 3 we have answered the call for a Check-in Assessment to see how students in Year 5 and Year 9 are progressing after learning from home for a period and to estimate growth since the previous NAPLAN assessment. In response to requests from principals we have just developed another assessment for Year 3. We are still working from home to free up public transport in Sydney and the time has been very productive. The experience is likely to bring long term changes to the way we work, such as using Microsoft Teams to more easily interact with and support teachers in schools.

What inspires me inside and outside of work are people and projects working to achieve more equity and sustainability in our society and to expose truth. I am particularly concerned about truth telling in history and I feel privileged to work alongside Aboriginal members on the committee for the Friends of Myall Creek Memorial (myallcreek.org). In 2000, long before I joined this committee, the committee with the assistance of Gwydir Shire Council built the memorial to honour the 28 Aboriginal women, children and old men massacred at Myall Creek on 10 June 1838. A commemoration is held on the Sunday of each June long weekend. We are grateful for the financial support provided by UNE for the last two commemorations and an associated symposium, Myall Creek and beyond, which was held at the Oorala Centre in 2018.

The long term goal of the Friends of Myall Creek Memorial is to build an education and cultural centre next to the memorial. We were fortunate in gaining a grant from Create NSW last year build an outdoor performance amphitheatre and facilities to support the many visitors, including those on school excursions, to the site. However, we have a long journey ahead of us to raise the funds necessary to build the education and cultural centre.

We are pleased that Federal parliament has this year granted tax deductible gift recipient (DGR) status to the Friends of Myall Creek Memorial so now our fund-raising journey begins.

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